1. Field of the Invention
The field of art to which this invention pertains is the solid bed molecular sieve separation of fatty acids. More specifically, the invention relates to a process for separating a fatty acid from an unsaponifiable compound which process employs a molecular sieve comprising crystalline silica.
2. Background Information
It is well-known in the separation art that certain crystalline aluminosilicates can be used to separate hydrocarbon types from mixtures thereof. As a few examples, a separation process disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,985,589 and 3,201,491 uses a type A zeolite to separate normal paraffins from branched chain paraffins, and processes described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,265,750 and 3,510,423 use type X or type Y zeolites to separate olefinic hydrocarbons from paraffinic hydrocarbons. In addition to their use in processes for separating hydrocarbon types, X and Y zeolites have been employed in processes to separate individual hydrocarbon isomers. As a few examples, adsorbents comprising X and Y zeolites are used in the process described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,114,782 to separate alkyl-trisubstituted benzene isomers; in the process described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,864,416 to separate alkyl-tetrasubstituted monocyclic aromatic isomers; and in the process described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,668,267 to separate specific alkyl-substituted naphthalenes. Because of the commercial importance of paraxylene, perhaps the more well-known and extensively used hydrocarbon isomer separation processes are those for separating paraxylene from a mixture of C.sub.8 aromatics. In processes described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,558,730; 3,558,732; 3,626,020; 3,663,638; and 3,734,974, for example, adsorbents comprising particular zeolites are used to separate paraxylene from feed mixtures comprising paraxylene and at least one other xylene isomer by selectively adsorbing paraxylene over the other xylene isomers.
In contrast, this invention relates to the separation of non-hydrocarbons and more specifically to the separation of fatty acids from the neutral or unsaponifiable constituents of the low boiling fraction of crude tall oil. Substantial uses of fatty acids are in the plasticizer and surface active agent fields. Derivatives of fatty acids are of value in compounding lubricating oil, as a lubricant for the textile and molding trade, in special lacquers, as a waterproofing agent, in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical fields, and in biodegradable detergents.
It is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,048,205 to use type X and type Y zeolites for the separation of unsaturated from saturated esters of fatty acids. A problem when a zeolite is used to separate free acids, however, is the reactivity between the zeolite and free acids.
We have discovered that crystalline silica molecular sieve is uniquely suitable for the separation process of this invention in that it exhibits acceptance for a fatty acid with respect to unsaponifiable compounds particularly when used with a specific displacement fluid and does not exhibit reactivity with the free acids.